Iris Van Herpen is one of the best clothing designers that you've probably never heard of. Born in the Netherlands in 1984 she interned for Alexander Mcqueen in London and Claudy Jongstra in Amsterdam before going on to start her own label in 2007.
She is a world leader in fusing modern technology with traditional haute couture, like this 3-d printed dress on the right. The finished clothes are other-worldly and dreamlike, a one-of-a-kind fantastical aesthetic.
Iris's work is multi-disciplinary and she collaborates with professionals in many different fields such as science, biology and even architecture in order to make her ideas come to life, they become more than a piece of clothing, they become an exploration in pushing boundaries and seeing how far she can go.
Cate Blanchett, Naomi Campbell, Cara Delvigne, Tilda Swinton, Rita Ora, Bjork and Lady Gaga have all worn Iris Van Herpen on various red carpets and to buy her couture creations can cost anything from $20,000 to $100,000, Which may sound expensive but when you consider the amount of work that goes into each one it seems worth every cent. One of her dresses took 1400 hours to make and an extensive six-step process of laser-cutting, vacuum-forming, liquid-moulding, heat-hand-moulding, hand-stitching and machine-stitching were used.
She has always had an eye for innovation, her first collection in 2007 featured clothing made from the brass ribs of 700 umbrellas, which caught the attention of The Groninger Museum in the Netherlands, and they offered to buy some of the collection. Now her pieces grace the halls of museums all over the world.
In 2009 the awards started coming in, Van Herpen's 3D printed garments were included in Time Magazine's list of 50 Best Inventions of that year and she was also awarded the ANDAM Gran Prix Award in 2014, The European Commission's 2016 STARTS Prize, the Dutch state prize for the arts and the Johanness Vermeer Award in 2017, the list goes on.
“I want to give new meaning to couture — give it relevance in the age of technology. I see couture as the laboratory of the bigger picture of fashion and my aim is to show that couture is not about yesterday. I hope to make Haute Couture the engine of progress in our rapidly changing digital age.” - Iris van Herpen
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